The Ragman's Daughter

A sloppy slice of social realism, adapted from Alan Sillitoe's novel but not bothering to reproduce the period detail that goes with its archetypal '60s message about regional dead ends. Good performance by Rouse as the working class chap with council flat, two kids, and no job after being fired from the cheese factory for pilfering, who looks back in nostalgia to his youth of carefree petty criminality in the company of a nouveau riche girlfriend. But the already rootless narrative is further sabotaged by camerawork which drains all character from the Nottingham locations.